Getting to Darkness 15 seems like an unnecessary grind.

[Takumashii]

I'd suggest either gating the difficulty unlocks behind something other than a full run, or unlocking them a few at a time, or something.

[Torniquet]

...? Use different weapons, characters and upgrades.

[Equiqox]

1. If you're struggling and writing this out of frustration, use elemental builds especially freeze
2. Unlock for extra difficulty, game's not that hard if you know what you're doing
3. Achivements to flex

[Takumashii]

I'm not struggling; quite the opposite. It took me a few runs to win the first time, but then you're just slogging through incremental difficulty increases to get to the point where you can get the rest of the achievements.

I have been playing different builds a bit, but there's kind of no reason to do so until you hit max difficulty anyway (achievement-wise, which is my motivation here :p) and I'd rather just jump to that difficulty now.

[Grigou]

If you like the game, this is no grind at all. Just play a run or two once in a while, you'll hit 15 before you know it :)

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by Grigou:

If you like the game, this is no grind at all. Just play a run or two once in a while, you'll hit 15 before you know it :)

This. If having to play 15 runs is a problem, then you don't actually like this game.

[Takumashii]

eyeroll

I don't need to play 15 runs, though. I need to play 15 runs on a much easier difficulty and then a bunch more, which is the issue.

[Torniquet]

Originally posted by Takumashii:

eyeroll

I don't need to play 15 runs, though. I need to play 15 runs on a much easier difficulty and then a bunch more, which is the issue.

I can understand wanting to start on a higher difficulty from the get go because something is too easy but I don't really see how it's a grind to you. Just push through it, it's only 20 minutes a run it's in no way, shape or form a grind. Have fun playing the game or just skip the achievements if it bores you.

[pseudo]

I definitely see it the same way. If you want to play on the hardest difficulty it's behind 20 x 14 runs, with additional runs for fails/experiments. With that you have a minimum playtime of 4.5h just to see the full brunt of the game's difficulty. The gameplay doesn't evolve at all between 1-15, the threshold for success just decreases. Mobs move a bit faster, do more damage, etc.

It just comes off as unnecessary filler. Also lol recognising filler for what it is doesn't mean you're not enjoying the game wtf some people's logic is just pure facepalm.

[Takumashii]

yeah I wasn't gonna address that particular kind of gatekeeping :p

I think there's a reasonable case for 3-5 difficulties. One pack of "small/elite/boss mobs have more hp", one for "small/elite/boss mobs move faster", etc. But yeah having reached and beaten darkness 15, I can double down on my initial statement. Game is good, but game length is artificially inflated.

[Jetrel]

I find the game ridiculously easy. Doing the same run 14 times trying to increase the difficulty was silly. Even at max difficulty its still silly easy. Can we get a way to go up to darkness 30 and the ability to just pick what difficulty we want?

[KIPIUŚ]

The issue is that darkness level does not reward the player, eg Finishing the run on darkness 8 gives more or less same amount of coins as on darkness 0. If there was additional reward, it would an incentive to grind. I was doing acheviements like "pacifist", "reckless", "gotta catch em all" on darkness 0 cause why should I bother? Difficulty is just an option, while it should give more reward in my opinion.

[Mr.Door]

Back in my day, GRINDING was spending 5h killing the same exact mob on the exact same map (and competing with others players) to get 0.012% EXP per kill so I can level up. I'd repeat that 5 times just to access a NEW map where I can do the same thing again.

That's grinding.

Playing 15 20min matches of a single player game is not grinding. That's just playing the game.

[Takumashii]

"Grinding" is relative to game length. If you're playing a 100h RPG and you need to do something repetitive for 1h (or even 10h), it's not grinding, because that's a small percentage of the total playtime. In this game, more than 50% of the playtime is just getting to the hardest difficulty, and then you're doing the same thing for the other 50%.

That is a grind. :p My whole point is that the difficulty did not change significantly except with one or two of the 15 darkness levels, so the rest was just slogging.

Either way, I finished the game, and I think it's a very fun 5h game that took 16h to finish. :p

[DerelictJade]

Completely agree that the game progression needs more tuning but the game is still early access. Generally with creating games the priority of the development is centred on functionality and content, balancing and refinement too early loses meaning as the addition of future content could leave earlier adjustments meaningless.

The same applies to the difficulty scaling if they plan on making higher difficulties more difficult. I don't even believe the final boss is finished yet (I hope they intend to give him an actual attack eventually).

The game is what it is, unfinished. There's a lot of issues but I'm still enjoying it for what it is :)

[Lio]

I also find the grind very unnecessary, the game seems too easy and I want to dial up the difficulty.